The First Electronic Health Record Customized For The iPad Has Arrived [First Impressions]

The iPad has been out for almost a month and we now have the first electronic medical record app customized to take advantage of its features. The Dr. Chrono EMR app is the first of its kind to hit the scenes. Technically, MacPractice has already put their electronic medical record on the iPad, but you need a VNC connection, and they don’t have a customized iPad app yet.

The Dr. Chrono EMR app enables you to sync your iPad with the online practice management platform provided on the Dr. Chrono website. The electronic health record produced by Dr. Chrono is intended for smaller practices, similar to the model Epocrates is takings with it EHR. On initial impressions, the app definitely has potential, but you can tell there are kinks that need to be worked out.

One of those kinks happens when you’re trying to open up the app. When you try to open up the app from landscape mode, you get a blank screen and the app closes out abruptly and you’re back on the home screen of your iPad. In order to open the app, you need to be in portait mode – which shouldn’t be a necessary requirement when using an application.

Once opened, you have three options. Buy the app, request a free trial, or you can view the application with sample data containing fake patients. These samples definitely give hints of impressive features the application possesses, such as dictation within the patient file to optimized billing and coding.

Once we get our hands on an actual review application we’ll let you know. Until then, we’ve included some screen shots of this EHR app doing a soap note, scheduling a follow up, and more.

Author:

Iltifat Husain, MD

Founder, Editor-in-Chief of iMedicalApps.com. Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of Mobile App curriculum at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

The dr chrono IPad app is working fine in my medical practice. Since there are medical speciality limitations to the current available templates, I like the ability to design the click fields. The lego-like build engine for templates is fairly idiot proof, the trade off is obvious in choices, options.

I am doing basic charting in the free version and have not tried many of the features like billing, eRx, ect. One step at a time.

The support so far has been uniquely tops. Overall it works as advertised. I do not know if I will pay the $99 upgrade for a solo practice with 8 patients per day. I am benefiting from electronic chart organization, I’ll have to consider the value there some more before jumping.

How would you compare drchrono to practice fusion? I understand that practice fusion can run on an iPad now via a $30 app called logmein. Any thoughts? Also, practice fusion is totally free and I still don’t understand what the $99 upgrade for drchrono buys you??

Dr. K. We at Drchrono do not compare ourselves to Practice Fusion. We are focused on creating the best EHR we can possibility create. We offer features you won’t find anywhere else.

Being able to access your patient records on the iPad and being on the iPad are 2 different things. We are a native iPad EHR, which means we can offer features like Medical Speech to Text, taking photos and recording videos, not to mention a better user interface. A completely redesigned new version of the EHR will be out in a week. Download our EHR and sign up for a free account. You’ll get free upgrades and we’re planning to include features you won’t find in any other EHR.

Don’t compare yourselves to the competition? That’s funny. If you don’t, then how can you say that you “offer features you won’t find anywhere else”? Ridiculous. Well, if you want to stick your head in the sand and keep it there, that’s your business. I’ll tell you what though.. Comparing your product to the competition is certainly what the users are doing. And understanding the users, is the key to providing the best product possible.

Of course DocWithers is right and knows that the drchrono folks are aware of the competition. What is ridiculous, is just spin. Or maybe they don’t compare themselves to PF?

Since my first post I have been pleased to discover the drchrono professional forum. This venue is an area where Doctors can make a ‘feature request’. What is cool is the forum is allowed to vote on the wish. As the request gains popularity a solution request enters into a solution build phase. That’s neat.

I did make the $99 upgrade. In the end, it wasn’t the voice to text or the eRx that made the difference. The upgrade deal maker was the speed of the upgrades and personal attention to the bells and whistles. Thank you Ellis.

Although drchrono’s eRx is cleared through SureScripts, controlled substances (which is the bulk of my practice) are not supported. If controlled substance prescribing does not become a feature soon, I will likely drop the paid service or negotiate a rate reduction. I do not use the voice to text. My voice is incompatible with dictation software (except with the dead accurate Google Search App on the iPhone). Besides, the templates I’ve built to my practice do the job.

After my first post, the Practice Fusion folks stepped up their calls. I really hope they are doing well and I deeply appreciate their solution to the EMR business. As I wish them well, I am confident they will best most of the commercial junk that is being sold in the EMR/EHR market.

iMedicalApps is an independent online medical publication for medical professionals, patients, and analysts interested in mobile medical technology and health care apps. Our physician editors lead a team of physicians, allied health professionals, medical trainees, and mHealth analysts in providing reviews, research, and commentary of mobile medical technology. Our publication is heavily based on our own experiences in the hospital and clinic setting.